The Epic Cars Fanfiction (Explicitly Not 'OF DOOM')
by ObsidianJade
Summary: ...because in eight years, I still haven't come up with a better title (or a decent summary). Part Five of the Hallowed 'verse at Nick and Wally's insistence. Cars 1 and Planes 1/2 canon-compliant-ish. Ignores Cars 2/3, partly because there are only so many characters I can bring back from the dead in one plotline, and Nick got there first.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Believe it or not, this plotline dates solidly back to 2008 and the stories _Memories on a Wall_ and _Shatter_. MoaW was originally the ending of a larger piece that, at the time, I didn't have the patience, brainpower, or leisure to write. While I'm not certain the latter two aspects have changed much, I'm working on the former. And while the plotline has evolved with the addition of the Planes movies (Cars 2 will not be part of the plotline, for multiple reasons), Cars 3 does not have any bearing on the plot, so any resemblances _are_ , in fact, completely coincidental.

Integrated into the Hallowed 'verse at Nick and Wally's insistance. If you haven't read, at the very least, _All Hallowed_ and _Another Story Altogether,_ you will be very confused. Natch, I'd love you to read the whole series, because I actually kinda like it.

The first chapter starts out just over a month after _Operation: Happily Ever After_ , this will contain drama, ghosts, romance, emotionally constipated characters, and a full cast of characters from Cars, Planes, CHiPs, and NASCAR, because the author is incapable of doing anything simple. Warnings will noted by chapter.

For faster updates, follow me on Archive of Our Own under the same name, everything gets posted there first!

DISCLAIMER: This is a fan work. All copyrights are property of their respective holders. Author claims no ownership of canonical characters and makes no profit. Appearances by characters under the names of actual humans are entirely fictional and bear little to no resemblance whatsoever to said actual humans. No disrespect of said humans is intended or implied.

* * *

 **THE EPIC CARS FANFICTION  
(EXPLICITLY NOT 'OF DOOM')**  
Chapter One

"So how do you feel now, kid?"

"Like I need a trip through the pressure washers," Lightning said with amused resignation, as a side-mirror sized clump of red dirt dislodged from his wheel well and exploded into pieces on impact with the gravel road. A few of the smaller pieces rebounded upwards again, bouncing off the the coating of dirt that was almost totally obscuring the distinctive red and white paint beneath it.

With surprising fastidiousness, given that he was caked nearly to his roof in an identical coating of the red dirt, Doc ducked from behind Lightning to avoid having any of it bounce onto him, and pulled up next to his protegee.

"I meant about the race."

"I know what you meant, Doc - eugh," Lightning muttered, slowing to shake another clod of dirt loose from his undercarriage. " _Why_ did we think running the Butte track this soon after our one major rainstorm of the year was a good idea, again?"

Doc snorted softly, drifting a few inches to the right to bump gently against Lightning's side. Numerous scrapes on both sides of his body, sporting either red paint transfer or bare metal, suggested it was far from the first time that particular action had been performed, just the gentlest - and shot a wry glance at him from the corner of his eye. "Because slick dirt is a lot more complicated than slick asphalt, and Daytona is supposed to be hot this year. The more practice you have running under adverse conditions -"

" - the better of a racer I become, I know," Lightning chuckled, giving himself another, all-over shake and dislodging a cloud of red dust that left them both hastily accelerating and trying to cough their intakes clear.

As he rolled easily over the slight bump in the road that marked the transition from roughly-maintained gravel to smooth asphalt, Lightning's eyes lifted automatically to glance at the booms of the cranes visible over the rooflines of the shops lining Main Street.

The expansion of the Radiator Springs Racing Museum was something that the town had been debating almost since the Museum's creation; the majority of the building had served as Lightning's headquarters, with small area dedicated to Radiator Springs and the Willy's Butte track, as well as a separate wing to commemorate Doc's career.

It hadn't taken very long, however, before Lightning's own career started breaking records - Doc's season-wins record included - and he'd eventually bowed to the inevitable, broken ground on a separate Headquarters, and let the Museum overrun the entire original building.

The Museum had been a labor of love for the entire town, and when Lightning's budget had fallen short of his goal for refitting the old hotel, he hadn't even had time to adjust his plans before the other residents had come forward.

Everyone had contributed what they could, and far more than Lightning would have dared ask, or dream. Much of it had been in cash - half of Sarge's Army pension, a year of profits from both the Taste-In and the Casa Della Tires, and a hefty portion of Red and the Sheriff's county salaries; but the other help had been just as valuable. Flo and Ramone had to be argued out of taking out a loan on their house, and had only agreed in exchange for helping with all of the repainting and decorating of the Museum. Lizzie and Mater had contacts with what seemed like every discount materials supplier in the surrounding counties, and had called almost all of them to get the materials needed to transform the old building. Sally had handled the entire legal end, from purchasing and incorporating through insuring, saving Lightning what would probably have been months of frustration and legal costs.

Doc's contribution, though, had probably been the most valuable of all; he had finally cleaned out his garage.

The three Piston Cups, restored to their former brilliance under Ramone's care, took the pride of the wing, but the newspapers that Doc had saved were the true treasures. They were a wide and clear window into the history of racing, from a time before most of the current racetracks even existed.

Despite that, nobody, least of all Lightning himself, had been expecting Tex Dinoco to roll into town just after the season ended the previous year and ask if they would be interested in expanding the Museum far beyond the history of just the Hudson Hornet-Radiator Springs Racing team, to encompass pretty much the entire history of the Dinoco Racing League.

"Like the Hall of Fame?" Lightning had asked, making the question come out in calm, almost-level tones. He'd toured the facility in Charlotte a dozen times before his tires had ever touched a track, dreaming of his own likeness on the walls next to the likes of The King and The Intimidator.

The fact that his likeness was on those walls _now_ did nothing to squash his excitement.

"Well, at least like the Hall's li'l brother," Tex had answered comfortably. "Ya'll have proven you've got the market here, and there's not too many places out this way that can offer racers from both your generations."

Which was the truth; although racers and their fans came from all corners of the country, the bright core of racing itself was the Southeast, rooted between mountain distilleries and Florida beaches. It had edged its way westward - the Piston Cup ran on tracks in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas - but the home state of racing would likely forever be North Carolina.

To have a Hall of Fame here, in Radiator Springs, Arizona, would mean so much, not just in tourism for the town, but to fans who couldn't travel across the country to see the original Hall.

They'd barely been able to raise the question to the rest of the town's residents before it had been heartily and unanimously approved. They had signed the papers, Tex had signed the checks, and there hadn't been a moment's peace in town since.

Lightning smiled as he picked up speed, speaking over the clamor of arc welders and rivet guns and the busy hum of the town center. "You think it'll be done by midseason?"

"I'll be surprised if it's not," Doc replied. "And you never answered my question."

"Which question was that?" Lighting half-joked, accelerating a little more, but Doc pulled up beside him once again and bumped him halfway onto the dusty shoulder, leaving another streak of bare steel shining amongst the dirt.

"Don't play games, kid, not with me. I'm not senile yet, I can see the racing getting harder on everybody. Too hard for some folks, ones I never thought would leave the track."

Lightning winced a little at that. Jeff's announcement of his intention to retire at the end of the season had been a bit of a shock for everyone, and there were rumors going around the pit crews that Tony was thinking of hanging up his stripes after next year.

"I feel in better shape this year than I have for any so far, Doc," Lightning offered, more quietly, as they made the turn towards Main Street. "All credit to my Chief."

Doc snorted. "Don't kiss my bumper, rookie," he rumbled as he dropped back to fall in the lane behind Lightning again, although he didn't bother trying to hide the smile on his face when he said it.

Eight years into Lighting's racing career, he was already a three-time champion - or perhaps four, depending on how you viewed his first Piston Cup - and Doc was perhaps the only vehicle in the world who could pretend the younger racecar was still sporting a yellow bumper-stripe.

"More than I did during training, you mean? I almost knocked out a tooth when you checked up on that turn!"

The grunt that Doc offered in response could, perhaps, have been interpreted as apologetic. "Miscalculated. Anything I need to take a look at?"

"Nah, I've gotten worse goofing around with Mater."

"I know you have, I was the one who rebuilt your back end when Frank got you back before Chrystmas."

Lightning winced at the memory. The lectures he'd gotten - from Doc, for getting himself injured; Ramone, for ruining his brand-new paint job; Sally, for getting himself injured; Filmore, for tormenting the combine; and Sarge, for getting himself injured - had hurt worse than the combine's blades. "Yeah, were the _three weeks_ of agility training on the monster truck course really necessary after that? That track makes me motion sick."

"You're a sorry excuse for a racecar, kid," Doc snorted. "Has Frank gotten you since?"

He hadn't been tractor-tipping since that incident, mostly because he was staying too busy to be pursing nighttime trouble with Mater. Which Doc knew full well. "Well, no, but -"

"Then it worked, didn't it?" Doc shot back, his voice several levels drier than the surrounding desert.

"Yeah, I've stopped getting motion sick," Lightning grinned, accelerating just enough that Doc's attempt to knock into his bumper fell a few inches short. "You're getting predictable, old man," he teased, slowing to smirk back at the Hornet.

Only to grunt sharply as Doc's heavy front bumper connected successfully with his own, significantly less substantial, rear bumper, knocking him forward several inches.

"Who's getting predictable, again?"

"That would be both of you," interrupted a third voice, and Lighting glanced up to see Sally rolling towards them, trailed by a champagne-colored Chevy Blazer toting an amused smile and a smartphone. "Your RSN interview was scheduled at Flo's in an hour -"

Lightning's welcoming smile vanished under an expression of alarm.

" - which we knew you would completely forget about, so it's been moved back to three o'clock so that you have time to wash up, have your paint fixed, and get something for lunch," finished Anne, the Blazer, lifting the phone. The sound of a camera shutter bounced cheerfully off the gleaming shop windows surrounding them, and Lighting snuck a peek at himself in the nearest one and grimaced at his reflection.

If anything, he looked worse than he thought; his red and white paint was nearly invisible under the thick coating of dirt and a more-than-generous application of Doc's deep blue, and he had more scrapes and dents on his frame than he'd managed to collect after the last Martinsville race. It was barely noon, but getting him camera-ready by three was still going to be an accomplishment. It was a good thing Ramone had that quick-dry paint to use for fast touch-ups - even if the stuff did itch miserably.

"I really should talk to Rust-eez about switching to a blue-based color scheme, I've got more of your paint on me than my own!" Lightning chuckled, casting a wry glance at Doc, who surveyed him with critical, narrowed eyes.

"You carry it pretty well, although I'm not sure it's quite... bright enough to suit your personality," the old Hudson rumbled, earning quiet snickers from their audience.

"Gee, thanks," Lightning shot back, his grin widening until a clump of dirt dislodged from his hood tethers and bounced into his mouth. "Ugh! Ew!"

"Boys, interview?" Sally chided gently, as Lightning spat the last grains of mud out, then glanced back at Anne when he realized she'd been fiddling with her phone.

Hiring a PR assistant had become necessary after the tiebreaker race at the end of his first year, when the requests for interviews had come to thick and fast for Harv to manage. Anne, whose degree in Public Relations had been secondary to her love of racing, had been part of the media frenzy that originally tracked Lightning to Radiator Springs, and she'd been one of the first to return to the town when Lighting declared his intention to open his headquarters there. When the rest of the media had followed, she had quietly offered her help to the overwhelmed citizens in hopes of meeting Lightning or Doc in exchange.

She'd been stunned speechless when Lightning himself had knocked on the door of her Cozy Cone eleven hours after her arrival and personally requested her help, but risen admirably to the challenges. Now, years later, Lightning considered her an indispensable part of his team.

"You're putting that picture on Twitter, aren't you?" he grinned ruefully, already knowing the answer. While he did, occasionally, post to the account himself, it was far more frequently Anne behind the posts, usually with the most embarrassing photos of him she could manage. He couldn't argue with the results, though; he'd been voted Most Popular Racer for the last four years running, to Junior's amused gratitude.

"Already have done," she corrected, passing the phone over for him to see. The picture, he and Doc in all of their filthy, battered glory and regarding the camera with resigned amusement, was captioned _'Great morning of training with #DocHudson - but just remembered I have an RSN interview to film! Better get cleaned up!'_

"No joke," Doc chuffed, backing up and beginning to turn away, undoubtedly heading for the pressure washers and a quiet afternoon back at the clinic, but Sally quickly darted around behind Anne to block his route.

"And just where do you think you're going?" she asked, and Lightning backed up an inch or two, laughing, at the sight of the smile on her face. It was the same one she'd worn all those years ago in the midst of that sunny courtroom - the smile that had heralded the biggest shake-up of Lightning's life.

Doc knew that smile almost as well as Lighting did, and Lighting snickered when the older car's back bumper dipped as his tires tightened instinctively, gripping the road in preparation for a hasty retreat. "Uh -"

"We thought it would be nice," Sally began, gesturing between herself and Anne with a tire - Anne was studiously fiddling with the phone, which didn't quite hide her smirk - "if you would appear with Lighting during the interview. It's been almost a year since your last one, and the publicity's always better when the pair of you appear together versus Lighting alone."

"Thirty-seven percent higher share rates on social media, nineteen percent more likely to be shown on television news, and the Piston Cup site is guaranteed to post clips, still images, and the transcript of any interview you appear in," Anne piped up, turning the phone around again to show a particular tweet.

 _' AKAMrsCrophopper: OMG can't wait! Is #DocHudson going 2 be on interview?!'_

The little retweet symbol was green, and below that was Anne's response: _' Lightning_McQueen . AKAMrsCrophopper - Maybe! See if you can get #DocHudsonInterview trending to convince him!'_

It had already been retweeted three hundred and twelve times and had only been posted for two minutes.

The look that Doc sent the two women could have stripped paint, but he scowled in resignation anyway. "All right, _all right,_ I'll do it. Just tell Ramone he'd better have my decals ready. If I'm going to be making an idiot of myself on national television, I'd better look the part."

* * *

END CHAPTER ONE

* * *

NOTES:

This first chapter is set in mid-February of 2015, shortly before the racing season opener at Daytona, and we're going into Lightning's ninth season of racing. (Just to scare you, I will note that MoaW takes place after his _tenth_ year of racing...)

Dinoco Racing League: the umbrella organization covering the Piston Cup and other racing series, as NASCAR covers the Sprint (now Monster Energy) Cup series, the XFinity series, and the Camping World Truck series.

The NASCAR Hall of Fame is an actual facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, although as it only opened in 2010, the Carsversian equivalent of it is at least ten to fifteen years older.

The Jeff and Tony referenced in the story are Jeff Gordon (Jeff Gorvette in Cars 2 & 3) former driver of the 24, who retired from NASCAR in 2015 (well, tried to!), and Tony Stewart, former driver of the 14, who retired in 2016. Jeff is now a race commentator, and Tony has gone back to running non-NASCAR races, mostly on dirt tracks.

Dale Earnhardt Junior (voicing his own then-number 8 (now 88) car in the original Cars) will also play a significant role in the story; he retires at the end of the 2017 season. Junior - once notorious for his camera-shyness and dislike of public speaking - has been voted Most Popular Driver every year since 2003, an honor he likely will not object to handing off to... hmm, my bet's on Chase Elliott. (Though since Smoke's retirement, I've been cheering on Larson.)

The King - Richard Petty, driver of the 43 car, voiced his expy in the first Cars movie.

The Intimidator, Dale Earnhardt Senior, was a legendary NASCAR driver most famous for driving the black #3 Goodwrench Chevrolet Monte Carlo. He bears the sad distinction of being the last driver killed during a NASCAR race - the 2001 Daytona 500 - which pushed the corporation to make massive improvements to the safety features of their tracks and vehicles.

Martinsville - the shortest and oldest track on the current Cup circut, this half-mile oval is notorious for bump-and-rub racing, leaving cars in very battered condition. (It's also more or less my 'home' track, being about two hours away from me, and was my first live race!)

A 'yellow bumper stripe' - visible on Lightning in the original movie - is the mark of a rookie racer.

The Lightning_McQueen Twitter address is not, to my knowledge, valid, nor is it associated in any way with Disney. The AKAMrsCrophopper handle is, of course, Dipper, and equally invalid and unassociated. And there are supposed to be at-signs in front of those handles, but FFN eats them, which is another reason I'm predominantly on AO3 these days, *eyeroll*

If you're have questions about anything else, please feel free to ask! While I'm still reasonably new to NASCAR myself, I'm happy to look up answers I don't know.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: During the off-season, Lightning maintains his modified throwback 'cruising' paint scheme seen in the end of Cars. Sponsorship logos and number are magnetic or adhesive clings for simplicity's sake, but fixing the paint still requires multiple colors and layers of work.

In a now-familiar game of _How Hard Can Jade Lean on the Fourth Wall_ , fanfiction is discussed and several character pairings are mentioned/discussed and dismissed by the characters in question within this chapter. **This is not intended as ship hate , and please remember the opinions of the author and the characters are not necessarily the same!** And besides; if you love a ship, sail it. Cars 2 is also explained.

This chapter did not want to cooperate, and I have been very annoyed at it for some time and rather dislike it. Hopefully you'll all enjoy it more than I do!

* * *

 **The Epic Cars Fanfiction**

 **(Explicitly Not 'OF DOOM')**

 **CHAPTER TWO**

"...an' then the beautiful Jaguar swooped down from the sky -"

Lightning gave a soft chuff of laughter as he rolled into the lot of Flo's Cafe at a quarter to three, acutely aware of the half-dried patch paint itching on his sides. Mater was obviously trying to impress Kori and her camera team if he was breaking out that particular tall tale.

Everyone else was there already; Anne and Sally deep in discussion with Kori, Mater entertaining the camera van and the sound tech, and Doc at his usual pump, a can of oil in front of him. A second can, in Lightning's preferred weight of synthetic, was waiting at his left front tire. Through the window of the Cafe, Lightning could see Flo and the Miata twins cleaning up after the lunch rush, and Sheriff was watching from one of the far pumps. The majority of the Radiator Springs residents tended to stay out of the way of the cameras, although it wasn't uncommon for several of them to linger outside of the shot to watch the filming.

"Stickers, there you are! We were starting to wonder if you'd forgotten again," Sally smiled, rolling up to greet him as he pulled in. Anne and Kori both nodded their greetings to him before going back to reviewing notes on Kori's skyPad - probably approving the interview questions, if he had to guess.

"Nah, just waiting on the master artist to complete his work. Careful, I'm still wet," he added quickly, and Sally backtracked away from her intended kiss to his fender. Doc had been in and out of Ramone's in half an hour - his sturdier steel skin meant both fewer dents and faster repair, and his monochrome paint was definitely a faster touch-up than Lightning's.

" - an' then with the rockets, I won the race!" Mater concluded, grinning broadly, as his audience exchanged bemused glances behind him. "Hey, Lightnin'! Ya just missed my best story!"

"That's okay, Mater, you can tell it to me later, right?" He'd heard the story a few times now, and it always grew with the telling. The first version had simply been a global rally-race - probably because of all the news coverage of the Wings Around the Globe rally last year - but by the third telling, the story had been expanded to include international spies and a vast oil company conspiracy.

The fifth telling would probably involve invaders from Mars, but at least they were never bored in Mater's presence!

"I'm still not sure why your story requires me to be dead," Doc grumbled, hunkering down a little on his suspension, and Lightning glanced towards Doc in some concern at the tone of his voice. The old Hudson's mouth was tight with something that wasn't quite annoyance, although Lightning couldn't put a name to it.

"Well, tha's simple, Doc," Mater answered, cheerfully oblivious to Doc's irritation. "Lightnin' wouldn't do nothin' that stupid with you around!"

"...I think I've just been insulted," Lightning remarked, circling around the pumps to pull up beside Doc, who slid him his oil without comment. Lightning risked a light nudge of his tire against Doc's, mindful of both their paint jobs, and the corner of Doc's bumper loosened into a faint smile.

"Well, 's true!"

"Don't worry, Doc, you're merely joining the legions of characters killed off in fiction for the mere function of plot advancement. It's something of a milestone," Anne grinned from beside the camera, passing Kori back the skyPad as the reporter gave a startled snort of laughter.

Doc's eyeroll might have been better suited to a car half Lightning's age. "I'm flattered."

"Usually, it's for romantic purposes, though," Sally remarked, scrolling through something on Anne's phone. "I can't count the number of times I've been written out or killed off for the sake of pairing Lightning up with someone else."

Lightning couldn't quite stop the incredulous noise that escaped him. "Seriously? They think I'd - with who?!"

Anne - who was, in some way, contractually obligated to keep track of such things - shrugged, not quite managing to stifle her amusement. "Mostly young, female authors' avatars, but I've seen Junior, Mater... even you occasionally, Doc."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

"I think I'm gonna pretend that too," Mater declared, after a moment of speechless astonishment. "No 'fense, buddy."

"None taken," Lightning answered, watching as Sally raised an eyebrow at the phone before tilting the screen for Anne to read.

The Blazer raised an eyebrow at the phone in an identical expression of surprise. "Pairing you with Dusty Crophopper, that's a new one," she remarked levelly. "Maybe we should try to do a publicized meet between you two, capitalize on people's interest... We can emphasize the rookie championship and the mentor-trainee dynamic, too, his instructor is a retired Navy Corsair."

"As long as you don't expect me to kiss him, sure," Lightning shrugged, earning another round of startled laughter from Kori and her crew and another eyeroll from Doc.

"Lightning, you seem remarkably comfortable with the fanfiction. Isn't it a little strange, knowing people are writing stories about you?" Kori asked. It was her on-camera voice, more sharply enunciated and pitched slightly deeper than her normal speaking voice, and Lightning snuck a fast glance behind her at the camera, unsurprised to see the recording light on.

Well, it wasn't the first time they'd started an interview in the middle and spliced the segments into a more logical order. Quickly toning his amused grin down to a slight smile - and so what if he'd copied it from The King? - he put on his own camera-voice and answered.

"Well, it surprised me a little at first. But to be honest, my friend Mater makes me a character in so many of the stories he tells that I got used to it pretty quick. And I've been really lucky, I get to talk to a lot of my fans, both face-to-face and through social media with the help of my PR Manager, and most of them are awesome people with great imaginations. I don't see anything wrong with them having a little harmless fun with my public image."

Doc pulled a face beside him. "I just can't understand the whole concept. Playing around with someone's name and face like you have a right to it, or their private life."

Lightning chuckled, shaking his head. "You're showing your age, Doc."

"A reasonable expectation of privacy is showing my age?"

"I think our definitions of reasonable privacy are kind of different," Lightning countered. "I mean, had they even invented color televisions when you were still competing?"

Doc shot him a narrow-eyed glare for that and took another sip of his oil before responding. "They caught on in the sixties."

Lightning, very focused on projecting a mature and polite appearance, did not smirk, merely considered Filmore's paint job for a moment and nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. The sixties were... colorful."

"Right on, man!" came Filmore's cheer from the street off to Lightning's left, predictably followed by Sarge's groaned "Don't embarrass us, hippie!"

Doc heaved a sigh, and Lightning shot the camera a full-on grin. "This is why I love living here. And as for the fanfictions, Kori, as long as they're just stories, they're not hurting anything. Naturally, I'd prefer they stopped trying to put me in a relationship with someone other than Sally, but a little fantasizing never hurt anybody."

Kori, consummate professional that she was, had stifled her laughter at Sarge and Filmore's banter and moved on to the next question with her usual calm. "Have some of the fans crossed the line?"

Doc shot Lightning a raised eyebrow, clearly remembering the incident during Lightning's third year of racing. Lightning shot him back a grimace - it hadn't been his fault the girl's cousin had been working security. Although he still wasn't sure how she'd slipped past Mack - or gotten the keycode for his trailer. There had been a few occurrences his rookie year, too, but 'crossing the line' depended a lot on where the line was...

"It's happened a couple of times, yeah, and I give the Piston Cup security team a lot of credit for handling them! It's been a few years now, though, so maybe they've gotten the message that I'm a happily married car."

Behind the camera, Anne and Sally promptly began an animated discussion consisting entirely of sharp looks and tire waves. Kori glanced briefly back at them, making a small, questioning gesture with the tire not holding her microphone, to which Anne nodded vigorously and Sally shook her head.

Kori raised an eyebrow at them before turning her attention back to Lightning, who quickly planted his tires on the ground to pretend he hadn't been beckoning to Sally as well. "You and Sally are coming up on your third anniversary, right?"

"Yup, July fourth!" Lighting answered, leaning slightly sideways to catch Sally's eye around Kori's fender. "We figured it was a date I probably couldn't forget. And who'd notice a few more fireworks?"

That startled a bark of unscripted laughter out of Kori, and Sally's wide-eyed look became significantly wider when Anne set her front tire squarely on Sally's back bumper and pushed.

Grinning broadly, Lightning sidled over until his side was an inch from brushing Doc's, making room for Sally as she circled behind the pumps to join them. Conscious of his still-damp paint, she pressed a very careful kiss to his front bumper and offered a shy smile to the camera.

"Sally, as always, it's a pleasure to have you on," Kori smiled, earning a more relaxed smile from Sally in return. "As a former corporate attorney, you're both the legal adviser for the Radiator Springs Racing Team, and a business adviser and attorney for McQueen Enterprises, as well as Lightning's wife. Are your current combined roles easier or harder than being a partner in your family's Los Angeles law firm?"

Sally laughed softly, Kori's matter-of-fact question putting her tires back on solid ground. "It's definitely different! The work is more varied and diverse, so it's helping me gain a lot of experience that remaining in L.A never would have offered. And even if it's a little more complicated sometimes, working along side my husband and our team here in Radiator Springs makes every minute of it worthwhile," she finished, pressing another careful kiss to Lightning's bumper.

"And working together doesn't put a strain on your marriage?"

"Well, it hasn't so far!" Sally laughed, as Lightning chuckled and shook his head.

"Our first few months together, dating, were the hardest, I think. It took us a while to learn to work as a team, not just Sally and I, but Radiator Springs as a whole. Establishing my racing headquarters here and getting this town back on the map took a lot of effort on all of our parts. "

"Especially with the way Doc was pushing your training during that first off-season."

"Yeah, well, that paid off in the end," Lightning laughed, as Kori nodded in agreement, moving smoothly towards the next topic.

"You proposed in Victory Lane, immediately after breaking Doc Hudson's season-wins record following your fall Talladega win six years ago. You later said that you hadn't planned for it -"

"I hadn't!" Lightning interrupted, with a soft, disbelieving chuckle. "Either the win or proposing, I mean. Superspeedways aren't my strong point, and I wasn't at my best that week. But we pulled it off, and when I rolled into Victory Lane, I just knew that I had to ask, because her saying yes would make everything perfect."

There was a sharp scrape of metal on concrete as Doc shoved his oil can, skidding it a few inches across the worn surface of Flo's lot, loud enough to startle everyone to silence for a moment.

Doc wasn't a consummate professional on camera - unlike Lightning, he still wasn't accustomed to the media being an inescapable part of racing, and he was too firmly set in his mold of 'cranky, secretive old man'. His team radio communications and Victory Lane appearances besides Lightning tended to mean bleeps, cuts, and the occasional FCC fine - but when he could be persuaded to join Lightning during off-season interviews, he generally did his best.

With everyone's eyes on him - including the Sheriff's - Doc frowned, gathered up the oil can, and muttered a low 'Excuse me' before slipping out from between Lightning and the pump and through the doors into the Cafe.

There was a moment of silence as Lightning, Sally, and Kori scrambled, before the cameravan shifted the focus of the camera and gestured to Kori with one front tire.

She shrugged gamely in response and kept going. "Was the lack of preparation the reason for the long engagement?"

It took Lightning a moment to track back to the conversation, and his laugh was probably a bit forced. "Everybody teased me about that. Four years isn't that long! But no, not really. Sally's the one who taught me how to slow down and live my life in the first place, so it didn't seem right for us to hurry. Besides, she'd made things perfect for me by agreeing to marry me, so I wanted enough time to make sure our wedding was perfect, too!"

"Well, perfection is pretty hard to obtain, but you seem to be coming close..." Kori paused, her smile turning slightly fixed, and glanced towards the door of the Cafe as Doc rolled back out, a fresh can of oil balanced neatly on the corner of his bumper, and pulled back into his space besides Lightning.

"...especially following last year's record-breaking performance," Kori finished, the faintest thread of confusion in her voice and her eyes on the old Hudson.

"Kid's leaving me in the dust," Doc remarked, tone calm and level, a faint, proud smile on his mouth as he slid the oilcan off his bumper and onto the concrete with a practiced twitch.

"Oh, come on," Lightning shot back, giving Doc's tire a sharp prod - slightly sharper than it might have been otherwise, with the faint tightness still at the corner of Doc's eyes. "You kicked my bumper eight runs out of ten today!"

"That's because I'm old and smart, and you're still young and stupid."

Lightning gave an agreeable shrug to that - it was hardly the worst thing he'd ever been called, and really wasn't that far off the mark - and pressed a quick kiss to Sally's fender as she discreetly rolled forward. She threw him a quick wink in response before slipping quickly out of camera range, ducking around behind Kori's crew and into the Cafe.

Lightning turned his focus back to the cameras again, poking at Doc's tire as he did so. "Look, I'm racing against this guy every week, so I can tell you; he has not lost one bit of the drive or talent that made him a champion sixty years ago."

"Oh, can it, kid," Doc chuffed, swatting Lightning's tire away, but he didn't bother hiding the upward twitch on the corners of his bumper. "You make it sound like I'm going back on the track instead of you."

"You could, you know, Tony's practically begged you to come run at Eldora. I think you'd be a bigger draw at his track than he is."

"Not a chance, kid. I'm retired. It's up to young punks like you to keep setting crazy records now."

"Hey, I've only got two crazy records!"

"In the past six years."

"Well, it probably won't happen again. I think the other racers would probably get mad if I won more than thirty races in a season."

"Sporting of you to leave six for the other guys," Doc drawled, exaggerating the roll of his eyes for the camera.

"You only left nine," Lightning countered, poking at Doc's tire again. "Twenty-seven wins in a season, old man."

"Twenty-eight and twenty-nine wins in a season, brat," Doc countered, poking him right back.

Kori, the concern from a moment before gone from her eyes - not forgotten, but at least well-hidden, chuckled softly. "So, do you foresee another record-breaking year in your future?"

Lightning glanced briefly towards Doc, who replied with a 'go ahead' motion of his tire and took a sip of his fresh oil. Two quarts in a day was a lot for him, even if they had run for a good three hours that morning.

"You keep guzzling oil like that, I'm gonna think you've blown a gasket, old man," he teased, just loud enough for the boom mic to pick up clearly.

"Well, when you get your medical degree, I'll listen to your opinion of my guzzling, you punk," Doc shot back, not missing a beat, and Lightning snorted. If Doc was still snarking, then the world was still spinning. Whatever else was wrong, they could sort out later.

For right now, he had an interview to finish. "Well, Kori, racing is impossible to predict. But the last few years have been really good to us, and my team and I have been training hard the past few months, so with the support of my fans and my sponsors, I hope we can make this year the best one yet!"

"And cut. Perfect," the cameravan declared, and the recording light on the camera blinked off. "We'll reset for the introduction - if nobody _else_ needs a top up?"

The question was asked with more than a touch of sarcasm, and the raised eyebrow the van shot at Doc made its target more than clear.

Doc, for his part, cocked his chrome-edged windshields in response, his bumper twisting into a faint sneer of annoyance. "Well, sonny, when you get to be my age, there are a few systems that start to degrade, including -"

"Uh, Doc, that conversation's probably better off in your office than where we _eat_ ," Lightning interrupted. "I think I'm still mentally scarred from driving in on you and Sheriff that one time -"

Kori dropped her microphone, Anne cracked up laughing, and Lightning nearly overheated on the spot. "That is _really_ not what I meant, it was a perfectly valid medical exam."

The Sheriff's snickers were audible from where he was parked at the corner pump, but the 'that's what _you_ think!' that Lightning half-expected never came, just chortling and the familiar squeak of the old Mercury's suspension. When Lightning risked a glance over, he saw the Sheriff rocking in a familiar, very deliberate motion, the very thought of which made Lightning want to clap his tire over his eyes.

Getting the rest of the interview done was going to take a while. And his patch-paint still itched.

* * *

END CHAPTER 2

* * *

NOTES: While full-color televisions were introduced in 1953, and the first nationwide color broadcast occurred in 1954 - the same year as Doc's career-ending crash - due to the expense of the televisions themselves and the rarity of color programming, it did take until the mid-sixties for color televisions to become popular.

Eldora - Eldora Speedway is a high-bank half-mile dirt track in Rossburg, Ohio, owned by NASCAR legend Tony Stewart.

Bleeps, cuts, and the occasional FCC fine - NASCAR drivers and their crews communicate on two-way radio systems during races, which fans can buy or rent scanners for and listen in on, and audio from which are occasionally broadcast by the television commentators. Swearing on these radios is 'technically' a no-no - although that guidleline is often ignored - but it has gotten broadcast companies fined in the past when it slips onto the live television broadcasts. Dale Jr rather hilariously dropped an f-bomb following a wreck at Martinsville, which was subsequently aired on the broadcast, much to his amusement. And obviously, the drivers are not supposed to swear during interviews, although that has happened as well - generally incurring the wrath of NASCAR and some fairly stiff fines, as they market themselves as being a family-friendly sport.

...no, Lightning's still not mature enough to handle the thought of cars half a century his senior having sex. And the Sheriff is not mature enough to resist temptation to make Lightning overheat from mortified horror.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Epic Cars Fanfiction**

 **(Explicitly Not 'OF DOOM')**

 **CHAPTER THREE**

"So spill."

Doc blinked, glancing up from the medical journal he'd been pretending to read for the last ten minutes. The cover of it touted an article on a customized airplane gearbox rebuild; probably a fascinating subject, if Doc had a plane as a patient more than every five years or so.

"Spill what, kid? Paint? Beans?"

"Secrets?" Lightning countered, nodding towards the muted television mounted on the trailer wall beside them. The interview they had filmed two days before was playing on the screen now, rather to Doc's annoyance. He didn't need to look at himself that badly, even if Ramone had done a spectacular job with his rushed touch-ups, and his decals looked damn good.

The RSN editing team had done a good job with the footage Kori and her crew had gotten; they'd managed to edit Doc's abrupt departure and return into something a little smoother, filed down the rough edges on his temper in some of the answers he'd given, that sort of thing.

On screen, Lightning's smile was bright and confident, Doc's wry and amused as Lightning discussed making this year _the best one yet_.

Pretty damned high standard to live up to, considering the last seven.

"What makes you think I have any secrets left? You're nosy enough, you should know them all by now," Doc grumbled, dropping his eyes back to the article he still hadn't processed more than a sentence of in a blatant attempt to avoid Lightning's gaze.

Not that it was really that simple. The pair were parked nose-to-nose, barely three feet apart, just over one hour into the thirty-hour trip to Daytona. The pair had started sharing Lightning's old hauler early in his second season, to allow for strategy discussion during travel, and had never really considered stopping. Lightning had gotten his main trailer upgraded to a slightly more spacious model - mostly at his own cost, given Rust-Eze's limited budget - in his third year, and hired on an additional tractor-trailer and bought a second trailer to spare his pit crew the long drives - and spare Sarge from towing Guido, who couldn't travel the highways under his own power, in a military-surplus trailer that Guido really could have complained about far more than he did.

So now they ran a miniature two-truck convoy to each race, the first trailer nearly identical to Lightning's old one, save for the addition of Doc's image behind his own on the trailer's sides. The crew trailer, though, had been wrapped in a panoramic portrait of Radiator Springs, one side showing the town at night, neon signs glowing in the darkness, and the other side the stark beauty of the surrounding desert under full sun.

When asked why he'd chosen the design, Lightning's answer had been as simple as it had been truthful - _'Why wouldn't I want to carry my home with me?'_

Several of the other racers apparently agreed, if the murals that later cropped up on the insides and outsides of their trailers were any indication.

Lightning's snort brought Doc sharply back to the present. "Yeah, right. I could develop super-psychic powers and read every thought in your head and still not know all your secrets."

"You're welcome to try reading the thought in my head right now," Doc countered, the biting sarcasm in his voice doing little to disguise the thought in question.

Lightning chuffed a soft laugh. "I don't need psychic powers for that one, Doc." He paused, staring idly out the window for a moment, and Doc had a momentary hope that he'd dropped the subject.

"Was it me breaking your record, or me proposing to Sally?"

"Hmm? What, the fact that I wanted a second can of oil? Who said it had anything to do with you, rookie? Maybe you're right, and I have sprung a leak."

Lightning made a point of tipping his head to check the trailer floor under Doc's frame. It was, of course, utterly free of any damning drips - Doc had never leaked a day in his life unless serious injury had been involved.

"All right, old man, you keep your secrets."

"Thank you, I'm trying to." The sarcasm was so automatic that it took him a second to process just how much of a wrong answer that had been - Lightning's eyes narrowed with a cunning that few vehicles credited him with possessing.

"So you admit you have a secret!"

"Who knows," Doc answered, shaking out the medical journal with a sharp snap and positioning it higher on its stand, blocking Lightning's gaze. "Maybe I even have two or three."

The article really was fascinating, he reminded himself, as the next hour of the trip passed in silence.

* * *

The Daytona 500 was scheduled to start in less than forty-five minutes.

By this time last year, the entire field had been out for hours on parade laps, fan meet-n-greets, inspections, and race prep. This year...

"Rain! Why is it always rain?!" Chick Hicks' voice, not quiet under any circumstances, was raised to combat the sound of water pounding onto the corrugated metal roof of the garages, and Lightning winced a little at the volume. Guido, playing a very intense game of Go Fish - appropriate, given the weather - with a few other pitties from Junior, Jeff, and Tony's teams, rolled his eyes and muttered something... well, Lightning's Italian lessons were going that well enough to know that it was physically impossible for Chick to carry out that suggestion.

"Because it's Daytona, Chick, now quit whining before I punt you into the lake!" Tony fired back from deeper in the garage, prompting laughter and a couple of whistles - the last from the Busching brothers, undoubtedly. Chick hadn't exactly been anyone's favorite since the King's retirement - he'd retained a few die-hards in the stands, but most of the cars on the track had made their opinions abundantly clear. Chick usually had enough grass in his undercarriage after every race that his crew had started packing trowels in their toolkits.

Oddly, it was Tony, who still tended towards red-dirt style bump-and-run racing even on asphalt Cup tracks, that tended to clash with Chick the most nowadays, cheered on by a much larger contingent of fans.

"Oh, go back to sucking Kahne's bumper, you -"

Whatever Chick thought of Tony would remain a mystery for the moment; both the camera crews and the officials descended at that point, and Lightning beat a hasty retreat towards the garage doors to escape the ensuing scuffle, the squeal of tires on concrete and Danica's shrill curses echoing off the roof.

He was barely a length from the other car's back bumper by the time Junior's presence actually registered; the 88 was sitting silent and in shadow by the doorway, staring out at the track through the pouring rain. His expression was so melancholy that Lightning was already shifting into reverse to leave him in peace when Junior shook himself out of his thoughts.

"Hey, Lightnin'. Come over to look for your namesake?"

Forcing a laugh, Lightning rolled closer. "Just trying to get out of Chick and Tony's way. I don't mind getting dented _on_ the track, but I'd like to avoid it _before_."

"Know what you mean," Junior replied, as a _squeal-thump_ and a swell of shouting from the far end of the bay punctuated Lightning's words. "Definitely better not to get between those two -"

The rising noise from the back of the garage was cut off as a familiar voice roared over the chaos. "THAT IS _ENOUGH_!"

"...unless you're Doc," Lightning snickered, as the bellowing continued, echoing through the garage and easily drowning out the continual roar of the rain.

" - no more decorum or dignity than a bunch of go-carts! You're all adults - _act like it_ , and save it for the track!"

"Assuming we ever _get_ on the track," Chick shot back, and there was a resounding clang of metal on metal and a responding yelp.

Lighting and Junior simultaneously winced and quickly turned their attention back towards the door. The rain outside was ferocious; so heavy that the stands and even the track were almost completely obscured behind the curtain of falling water. Junior seemed to find the unceasing flow hypnotic - certainly he didn't seem to have any trouble keeping his eyes on the pouring rain outside. But he was a bit older and a lot more experienced than Lightning, and maybe just more patient by nature.

Lightning stared at the little streams of water running on the asphalt outside, the rain, the duct tape on the bottom of the overhead door, the rain, the racks upon racks of tires, the rain, the white-painted official SUV attempting to lurk inconspicuously behind said tires, the rain... all the while shooting concerned glances out of the corner of his eye at the car next to him.

After about five minutes of this, Junior finally chuckled, shaking himself a little and settling down further on his suspension. "You're really bad at being subtle, y'know."

Lightning winced. "Yeah, I get that. Lack of practice." Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, he shuffled around enough to meet Junior's eyes, and blurted, "It's just... Are you okay?"

Junior blinked, looking mildly taken aback. "Am I okay with...?"

"Okay in general, I mean. I didn't want to bother you at first, because you looked really down, but then you talked to me and I figured you didn't mind company, so I'm here, but you're still upset about something, and - "

The not-entirely-inconspicuous official lurking behind the tires gave a sharp cough and Lightning bit the side of his tongue in surprise, turning enough to glance at the official. The big Explorer was shooting him a look through the tire racks that Lightning had seen far too many times on Doc and Sheriff's faces - _shut up, you idiot_.

At which point common sense and a smidge of pertinent racing history both smacked him like a full-speed impact with a wall, and he very nearly bit his tongue on purpose. He'd paid his respects to Dale's statue out front, the same way he'd done every year now - just a respectful nod and a second of silence - but it had become so much a habit that he'd forgotten.

"I'm an idiot," he announced, ignoring the official's snort of agreement, and turned sheepishly back to face Junior. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't... I mean... he was..."

"Kid, as much as it helped you out your first year, put your tongue back in your mouth before you run it over," Doc rumbled suddenly, his voice only feet from Lightning's back bumper.

When Lighting had reversed himself back into the garage and shaken most of the water off his hood - and Doc, Junior, and the conspicuous official had all finished snickering at how easily startled he was - Doc jerked his hood back towards the depths of the garage.

"Tony's begged a couple of stories out of me if you wanted to join us. Figure it'll keep everyone occupied," he offered. There was a streak of green paint on his left front fender and a twist to the old racer's smile that usually preceded Lightning being reintroduced to the cactus patch at Willy's Butte, which probably meant that Chick's crew would be busy hammering out a dent or six once the red flag lifted.

It probably also meant that someone from the official hauler was going to come yell at Doc again, but the racing world in general was still so glad to have the old Hornet back that it rarely went beyond a slap on the fender. The one time he had gotten nailed with a fine for bad conduct (which hadn't even been his fault; three different crews gotten into a brawl, and he'd been trying to haul Lightning, who'd gotten stuck in the middle of it completely by accident, _out_ of the mess in question and damn near busted Kyle's axle when he'd gotten in the way), six other racers had volunteered to pay it before Lightning could even offer. (Kurt had been one of the six, but he'd been arguing with his brother at the time, so Lightning didn't read too much into it.)

"We're all gonna park in a circle and you'll tell us stories?" Junior grinned, looking genuinely cheered for the first time all afternoon. "Are we back in kindergarten?"

"If we're judging by Tony and Chick's behavior? Yes. Therefore, I've decided to treat them appropriately for the age they're acting, before the race officials need to put them in time out. Just come over whenever you're ready," Doc added, glancing back to Lightning. "You've heard most of these before anyway."

"Well, I haven't," Junior spoke up, his smile still dim but looking more relaxed than he had moments before. "I'll be along."

"Will do, Doc, thanks!" Lightning called back as the old Hornet made a neat three-point turn and rolled away, before turning an apologetic glance back to Junior. "I'm really making a mess of stuff today."

"Don't worry about it, Lightnin'. Daddy made an impression everywhere he went and with everything he did. Even dying."

Lightning winced. "Still, I shouldn't have brought it up." Especially not with Austin now among their ranks, black-painted with the white three bright on his side. But apparently his tongue was determined to get him in trouble today, because the next thing that fell off of it was "Is it hard for you? Racing here?"

Junior sat silently for a moment, nearly long enough for Lightning to think his question would be ignored, before abruptly shifting into reverse and moving back enough to look Lightning in the eye. "If I let it get to me, it'd be hard to race anywhere." Rolling forwards a little, he gave Lighting a light, friendly nudge with the edge of his bumper. "I try not to let it get to me. Now c'mon, I don't want to miss Doc's stories!"

* * *

END CHAPTER 3

* * *

NOTES: Daytona International Speedway does in fact have a statue of Dale Earnhardt outside of the racetrack complex, as he died in a last-lap crash during the 2001 Daytona 500.

Oookay, who wants to know about NASCAR drivers? Tony - Tony Stewart, as my old favorite, will be mentioned often. He's an old-school racer who idolizes the drivers of a bygone era, and probably would adore Doc. My Carsversian version of him is a burly Chevy Impala/Monte Carlo mix.

Kurt and Kyle Busch, appearing here as Kurt and Kyle Busching because I figured the pun was apropos. Kurt, the older brother, drives the 41 for the Stewart-Haas Racing team which Tony co-owns. Kyle drives the 18 for Joe Gibbs' racing team. The two brothers don't always get along.

Danica Patrick is the only female driver currently in NASCAR's top tier, and was formerly a semi-successful Formula 1 driver. She drives the 10 car for Stewart-Haas Racing. While her results in NASCAR have been disappointing, she is a reasonably talented driver, especially good at slipping through accidents (and occasionally causing them). She's also tiny - 5'2" and 100lbs - but has, as I have oh-so-delicately put it in the past, cojones the size of cantaloupes, and a temper to match. My vehicle version for her is a Dodge Viper mix, small, sleek, and dangerous!

Kahne, whom Chick mentions, is Kasey Kahne (his middle name is Kenneth, I'm really not sure what his parents were thinking!). He drives the number 5 car for Hendrick Motorsports and is a friend of Tony Stewart's, they occasionally go dirt-racing together. He has a long-term girlfriend and child whom, with my apologies, I am ignoring in this story for purposes of some light Tony/Kasey.

Austin is Austin Dillon, who, upon ascending to the ranks of the top NASCAR racers in 2014, was given Dale Earnhardt's number 3. He often runs in a white-number-on-black style very reminiscent of The Intimidator's. Dillon's grandfather is Richard Childress, the owner of Richard Childress Racing, who owns the 3 car and previously fielded it for Dale Earnhardt. (My personal feelings on the matter are that the 3 should have been retired in Dale's memory, but, not owning the rights to it, have no bearing on the situation, but may influence my writing.)

Despite the joke about it in the last chapter, the story won't feature any actual Lightning/Junior romance, although they are good friends.


	4. Chapter 4

"Well folks, four hours later, it's finally a beautiful night for racing!" Darrell Cartrip announced, his front tires resting on the very edge of the announcers' booth as he peered down at the track. The trucks towing the huge air dryers had nearly finished their work, the asphalt finally dry enough that the racers wouldn't be at risk on their slick tires. "The sun is going down, our track is clean and dry, and it is looking to be one heck of a race!"

"Absolutely, Darrell," Bob Cutlass continued, too accustomed to their educate-the-viewer banter to miss a beat. "Our racers are going to have their work cut out for them; with the temperature dropping rapidly and all of the rubber washed off the track, it's going to be a very different surface than they've been practicing on all week."

"They planned for a rubbered-up track under the Florida sun, and they get a green track under Daytona lights!" Darrell grinned, backing up a few inches when one of the camera techs muttered in his earpiece that he was blocking Bob from the camera view. "This is where we're gonna see the most adaptable drivers rise to the top of the heap, Bob. Who's your bet?"

"Well, Darrell, since you give me first pick, I'm taking the obvious - Lightning McQueen! After last year's record-breaking championship performance, the Rust-Eze racer has everything going for him this season."

"Well, if I can't pick Lightning, I'm gonna go with our friend Jeff Gorvette. It's his last year on the track, so he's going to be pushing to end on a high note. Maybe he can steal a few wins from McQueen this year, whaddya say?"

"I'm more interested in what McQueen has to say!"

"Well, lessee if we can ask him," Darrell answered, the techs performing their well-practiced dance at the verbal cues and patching him through to the appropriate radio frequency. "Lightnin', good buddy, this is Darrell up in the booth, ya read me?"

There was no response on the channel, just a thin, static-laden silence, and Darrell couldn't quite stop his frown as he leaned back over the lip of the booth, peering down at the track. Lightning was clearly there, weaving in tight serpentines within his lane to warm his tires, but there was no indication he'd heard the call.

"Lightnin', this is Darrell, you read me?"

There was another brief silence, before an aggravated sigh gusted over the frequency; not Lightning's, but Doc's.

 _*I'd say we've got a bit of a radio problem, Darrell,*_ the old Hudson remarked. A glance at the monitor showed one of the cameras zoomed in on Lightning's pit box, Sarge and Guido already scrambling over a new antenna assembly. _*Hopefully we can fix it on the first caution, and you can interview him in Victory Lane.*_

"Well, Doc, I was gonna ask how you feel about Lightning's chances today, but I guess I don't have to! Sounds like you think he's a pretty sure bet."

 _*I'm not the gambling type, you ought to know that by now.*_

"I'd know it better if you weren't here!" Darrell shot back, laughing, half an eye on the monitor. The half-smirk that curled the corner of Doc's bumper in response was a bit of a relief; the Hornet had been snappish and tense for the entirety of Speedweek, and joking with him had met unpredictable results.

 _*Every lap is a roll of the dice,*_ Doc sighed, his eyes flicking from away from the track as Lightning rounded Turn Two and out of his line of sight. _*But if you ask me to bet, Darrell, I'll put my money on that kid every time.*_

"You know, I hope his radio is receiving, just so he can hear you say that."

 _*Ah, kid knows I'm proud of him. Now stop making me get mushy, Cartrip, you have a race to announce, and I have a punk kid to get to Victory Lane.*_

"Yessir, Doc. Good luck to you both tonight," Darrell laughed, and the tech cut their link to the frequency on his nod.

"Radio problems for Lightning McQueen!" Bob commented, sitting up a little on his suspension. "That lack of communication may be a serious issue for our reigning champion, who has grown very accustomed to constant contact with his crew chief, Doc Hudson."

"You wanna change your pick?" Darrell teased, nudging his broadcast partner's tire. "I'll be happy to lay my odds on McQueen if you think this radio trouble's gonna affect his chances."

"Thanks, Darrell, but I think I'll stick with my pick, and we'll find out how right I am in five hundred miles. Green flag is in the air!"

"Boogity boogity boogity, let's go racin', boys! And Danica!"

* * *

"All right, kid, two to go, you're clear behind, three lengths," Doc murmured into the headset, less coaching and more muttering into the void. The coaching was a hard habit to break, even if they had given up on repairing Lightning's radio after the third attempt had failed. The likeliest culprit was condensation in the kid's wiring from the rain - all the more reason to live out in the desert, rather than out here on the East Coast - but it meant that Lightning was essentially running this race solo.

The only upside to the entire mess was the company they were keeping in the pits - their stall was flanked by Tony's on one side and Junior's on the other. Both of those racers considered Lightning a friend, and were willing to relay messages to him when they got within shouting distance - like _'Doc says pit for tires!'_ or _'Doc says stop driving like a rustbrain just because he can't coach your every freaking move!'_.

He hadn't phrased it exactly like that, but asking Tony to relay any kind of message usually meant that it got a bit more colorful by the time it got to the recipient.

Still, running without his radio hurt Lightning's chances less than Darrell might have thought - or the other racers might have hoped. The kid was _good_ , genuinely talented, and had actually grown a couple of brain cells in seven years under the tutelage of the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, all of which had kept him out front - if not quite so easily as usual. But he had opened up a clear lead by now, with Tony, Jeff, and Junior battling for second place three lengths behind him.

"All right, white flag in the air, four corners left, just hold your line," Doc instructed the static. There were probably a thousand or so cars in the stands with their radios tuned to Lightning's channel frequency, listening to Doc talk to himself. At this rate, he was going to run out of excuses not to start a Twitter account; he was certainly proving only too willing to shout into the void. Or at the very least, grumble into it.

Stretching up on his suspension, he could see Lightning rounding Turn Four, the bolt stickers on his front fenders catching the light, reflections splintering off the SAFER barrier and the fence. "Good, kid, still clear behind, clear by four. It's all yours, now bring it home."

Even without his radio working, Lightning responded, pushing out a little more speed to open up the gap between himself and the other racers, and sailing across the finish line with an easy six lengths between him and Junior, Tony losing second place by a matter of inches.

Doc ignored the grin threatening to split his fenders as Sarge, Mater, Guido, and Luigi broke into cheers around him. "Good job, kid, that's the way to - _look out!"_

But of course, Lightning couldn't hear him. And he wasn't aware Chick Hicks bearing down on him - not until the green Buick slammed into his side.

* * *

Blade, parked on the cement apron in front of Maru's workshop to enjoy the feeling of the weak February sunlight against his rotors, glanced towards the Main Hanger at the sudden outbreak of noise. Dipper's shrill indignation rose above even Avalanche's wordless bellow, and below that he could make out both Nick and Blackout shouting furiously in Spanish.

He'd been reluctant to agree when Dipper had asked permission to hold her Daytona party on the Base, but the team - at least, all of the team who was interested in ground racing, which was the Smokejumpers, Patch, and Nick - took turns hosting a viewing party for the year's inaugural race, and Dipper's main residence was still technically in Alaska.

While it wasn't exactly fair for the Base's permanent residents to have their peace and quiet brought to such an early end this year, neither was it fair to expect the Smokejumpers to travel to the exhaust-end of the continent in _February_. Which all of them were precisely stubborn enough to do, because this was their _tradition_ , and Ford forbid they not be _together_ to watch forty-odd cars driving five hundred miles worth of circles.

With somewhat resigned curiosity - undoubtedly, if he did not find out the cause of their shouting now, he would learn over dinner, and probably in a much less coherent fashion than he might wish - Blade nosed the updated Search and Rescue training manual closed and rolled to the Main Hanger.

The door had been left wide open, so it was no difficulty for him to stick his nose in, silently observing his team as they continued to howl at the television. Nick was shouting a suggestion that would have been anatomically difficult even for the slimmest and most flexible of cars; certainly the blocky green Buick on the screen would have found it quite impossible.

Particularly given that the Buick in question was currently on his roof in the infield grass, all four tires flailing indignantly, and from the look of things, bellowing some fairly creative profanity, while several large white SUVs with official decals tried to restrain a burly Chevrolet mix with a torn fender that half-obscured the blue number 14 on his side.

The camera slid away from the Buick - whom one of the officials was regarding with an expression that suggested he was contemplating turning the 14 loose on him once again - to a younger, sleeker red car with a stylized lightning bolt paint scheme and a 95 on his side. The kid was injured - front fender and side panel caved in, and it looked like he might have been nursing a broken front axle - and leaning heavily against an older blue car, a fifties model that Blade didn't recognize.

A low, startled sound from the back of the hanger pulled Blade's attention away from the television. He was a little surprised to find Windlifter lurking in the shadows there; he hadn't even realized his Lieutenant was on the Base, let alone trapped in here with the viewing party.

He was a little more than surprised by the sound that was rolling up out of the Sikorsky's throat; a low, throbbing growl that carried under the others' shouts, a bass tone that shivered down into Blade's very frame.

He'd heard Windlifter make that sound precisely twice before - once, about five minutes before they'd had to talk Cabbie down from committing homicide, and a second time, when Cad had first driven onto the Base. Not a threat-sound, despite how it sounded, but the acknowledgement _of_ a threat; privately, Blade called it the 'slag is about to hit the fan' sound. Which, if the look on the Sikorsky's face was any indication, was a fairly accurate assessment.

If it were anyone other than Windlifter, he would have said the expression was that of someone who had just seen a ghost - but there was no ghost in the world that would put much expression at all on his Lieutenant's face, let alone that mixture of disbelief, anger, and hurt.

Windlifter snapped his gaze away from the television, executed a sharp pivot on his landing gear, and rolled rapidly out the door.

Blade didn't say a word, just turned and followed his Lieutenant. Several of Blade's internal alarm bells were chiming - anything that could distress Windlifter to this degree could, quite possibly, be a sign of the Apocalypse. "What's the problem?"

The noncommittal noise he received in reply was only slightly reassuring. "A family matter, of sorts," Windlifter murmured in reply, but there were sharp edges to his familiar, steady cadence. The door of his personal hanger was already open, and Windlifter rolled straight to his radio.

Blade lingered at his doorway, not concerned enough to invite himself in, but slightly too concerned to simply go back to his reading. "Anything I can help with?"

"Not at the moment," Windlifter answered, rolling forward to key the microphone on. That radio was always set to the same frequency, so there was no tuning required. "Elizabeth."

That was all, no proper query or hail, but it was barely a second before the radio squawked a response, Elizabeth's puzzled voice drifting from the fritzing speaker.

 _*Silus? What catastrophe has befallen us that you're calling in the middle of the afternoon?*_

Blade wasn't entirely sure if he should find it reassuring or worrying that Liz's thought process mirrored his own.

"Can you turn on RSN?" Windlifter asked, in lieu of any kind of explanation.

 _*I can, but why on Earth -*_ There was a long pause on the other end of the line, broken only by a sharply indrawn breath.

"Is it him?" Windlifter demanded, fixing the radio with a stare so intense Blade wondered if Elizabeth could feel it through the connection.

 _*Dear Ford,*_ came the disbelieving reply, Liz's voice soft-edged and a little frightened. _*Yes. I'm almost certain, I'm looking at the picture now... I think it must be, but how -?!*_

Windlifter snorted.

 _*Don't be ridiculous,*_ she chided regaining a little of her usual aplomb. _*We'd have heard about it if that were the case. Besides, Nick is quite special. Normal vehicles do not simply resurrect on a whim, otherwise there would be no basis for religion.*_

Blade was the one that snorted at that; the thought of Nick being hailed as some kind of deity was both too absurd and too horrifying to contemplate. The celebrity-worship had been bad enough!

"Does the how matter?" Windlifter asked, his voice steady and guiding, and Elizabeth's sigh crackled over the line.

* _At the moment, I suppose not. However, I'd best inform Victoria regardless.*_ Another long pause, then; _*She's not going to take this well.*_

"Perhaps not," Windlifter agreed. "But I believe it will be better to tell her."

 _*You would, dear, you're too tall for her to bite anything of importance,*_ Elizabeth answered dryly. _*She's somewhere in Tibet this month, I think. I'll see about tracking her down. Lucas out.*_

Blade waited with clench-jawed patience until Windlifter had gotten his radio properly shut off before poking a few inches of his nose across the threshold of his Lieutenant's door. "And just what in the Pits was that all about?"

Windlifter, when he turned to look at Blade, bore a thoughtful frown that looked unsettlingly like the one he'd worn the night Nick returned. "That remains to be seen."

"How much of it can you see right now?" Blade did not like mysteries happening under his nose, especially not when they affected members of his team, and if he could sarcasm answers out of his reticent second-in-command, he was damn well going to.

"Some very old family history has reared its head," came the calm reply, and Windlifter rolled out of his hanger again, at a far slower speed than he'd entered it. "It will not affect us directly that I can foresee."

"And indirectly?"

Windlifter gave an uncomfortable twitch of his rotors. "Much may influence us indirectly, from the direction of the winds to the -"

 _"Windlifter."_

"Blade, I do not know," the big Sikorsky sighed, suddenly sounding very, very tired. "The situation may never evolve beyond this, or it may become something beyond our imagining. There are things I cannot foresee, and this is one of them."

"Well, get your inner eye checked and let me know when you figure something out," Blade answered, his rotors twitching irritably, and, with his focus now thoroughly fractured, went to put his training manual away for the afternoon and join the others in a little therapeutic yelling at the television.

* * *

~ End Chapter ~

* * *

NOTES:

Oh, you thought that was Lightning's wreck that I mentioned? Heh. No. Lighting will have to suffer muuuuuuch worse than a broken axle, because I am evil.

Okay, your NASCAR knowledge for this chapter: Temperature affects racing surfaces.

In addition to the age and type of the track surface (asphalt versus concrete), the weather is a big factor in how the surface will handle. A hot track, particularly one that's recently been resurfaced, tends to be much slicker as the asphalt softens. Older tracks have rougher surfaces, which provide more grip, but chew up tires. A cold track has more grip than a hot one, but a green track - one washed free of the accumulated rubber from tires - has less, and tends to create more wear on the tires.

In our world, the Goodyear race tires have an average lifespan of 100-150 miles depending on the racing surface, meaning that drivers have to come in at least two to three times in any given race for fresh tires. They will usually trade tires with far more frequency, as fresh tires provide better grip and handling, meaning faster and more competitive driving. (Put mildly, there is no way in hell Lightning could have come close to running half a race on only one set of tires, unless tires behave very differently in the Cars universe.)

Lightning's radio problems were planned from the start - yes, condensation can cause radio issues - but were rather hilariously and brilliantly supported during June's Pocono race, when Ryan Blaney's radio stopped working. The 23-year-old driver used 1970's era hand signals to communicate with his crew - and went on to win the race.

Both the boogities and the 'Let's go racing boys!' are Darrell Waltrip (voice of Darrell Cartrip, former NASCAR driver, and current race announcer/commentator for NASCAR on FOX) signatures. And yes, he really does add 'and Danica!' to the end of his signature phrase on fairly regular occasions. Occasional variants are 'let's go racing, drivers!' or something track-specific, such as 'you bunch of Martinsville hotdogs!'

Doc's comments over the radio are actually what a spotter would be telling Lightning in a real-world NASCAR situation. The spotters, armed with high-powered binoculars and standing on the roof of the viewing boxes at the tracks, are tasked with telling their driver where other cars are relative to them, (allowing them to maneuver and pass safely), when another car is trying to pass them, and warning them of wrecks, caution flags, and any other hazards on the track. The Cars world doesn't seem to have spotters, possibly because the cars have a wider range of senses than humans driving cars, or possibly because it would have been that many more characters/details to animate. (If you want to listen to some real NASCAR radio chatter (and see the corresponding clips from the races), search 'NASCAR Radioactive' on YouTube. Radio discussions are generally between the driver, their Crew Chief, and their spotter, and can get pretty hilarious, if not slightly rude.)

And I will explain/clarify exactly what happened to Lightning in the next chapter. Short version is Chick hit him and knocked him into Tony, who retaliated against Chick.

Disney does list Windlifter's canonical first name as Silus. Yeah, I don't know either.

Both Elizabeth and Victoria are OCs of mine - while originally written for this story before it became part of the Hallowed 'verse, they made their first appearances in _All Hallowed_. Liz is a 1970 Jaguar E-Type, who works as the Special Events Coordinator for the Lodge. Victoria hasn't yet appeared on screen, but she's the source Windlifter contacts to help with his research on Nick's resurrection.


End file.
